“The only thing that stands between success and failure is chance”. Boy howdy, The Restaurant Man started as it meant to go on.

This week, local Cotswolds farmers Dave and Debbie want to build and run their own locally sourced and supplied gastropub, The Bell Inn.

It’s their dream, they wanted to do it all while holding down full time jobs and they’d already laid out two hundred grand on the project. Nevermind serving game, with twenty six pubs closing each week they’d both be on the game if it went bottoms up.

True to form Russell soon put pay to their newfound enthusiasm, explaining that running a pub is difficult at the best of times. Never mind that though, ten minutes in and Dave had been out shooting rabbits to serve on opening night, trying to justify an average spend of forty quid a head.

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Typically both of our budding restaurateurs were defiant in the face of Russell’s experience. At least until Restaurant Man did a survey of the local potential customers all of whom said it didn’t matter how good the fillet steak was, they didn’t want to sell a kidney to cover the cost.

Long days on the building site started to take their toll however, so Russell flew the couple off to Loch Lomond to show them how a successful field to plate business worked.

This proved to be the turning point, showing Debbie and Dave that juggling the pub and two full time jobs was impossible.

All the hard work had paid off though. The Bell Inn looked great, light and airy while still keeping that cosy local feel.

The pressure was on after Dave had done a full U-turn serving up a reduced menu offering only a few select dishes at far more reasonable prices. However, with staff that hadn’t been trained, come opening night Debbie and Dave were preparing to dance with the devil to say the least.

After a disastrous first night their new chef left leaving Dave to take the reins in the kitchen which actually far improved the quality of the field to plate food. All was well in the Cotswolds.

Next week, Restaurant Man scares some Scandinavians hoping to open a diner. Normality resumed.